Fay Maschler reviews Nuala: Irish eyes are smiling on City Road

A Derry good time: the main restaurant
Daniel Hambury
Fay Maschler26 January 2018

"I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name/ It felt good to be out of the rain…"

America was on the sound system; the scent of a wood fire filled the room. On a bitter, spitting day, arriving for lunch at Nuala — pronounced “noo-la” — delivered that feeling of imminent contentment you get when reaching a pub at the end of a long winter walk. This walk is around Old Street roundabout to the rather infelicitously named White Collar Factory, a Derwent London office and retail development.  

Nuala’s co-owner and executive chef is Niall Davidson. Brought up on his grandmother’s farm in Derry, he came to London to work as a butcher before applying heat to the meat first at St John Bread & Wine and latterly at Chiltern Firehouse. There are other names and histories to bandy about. 
Leading the kitchen is Colin McSherry, who has worked at The Fat Duck and also Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner, and sommelier Honey Spencer has Noma Mexico and Sager + Wilde on her CV.  

The philosophy explained at the table — as is now the rule — is carefully and sometimes exclusively sourced produce from the UK treated imaginatively. Red dulse has been whipped into the butter that accompanies sourdough made in-house. “Don’t you rather love chilled plain unsalted butter?” says my companion. “Yes,” I whisper behind my hand. 

 Oft-Instagrammed: beefsteak tartare, extra stout sauce, egg yolk and dripping fries
Daniel Hambury

This chap, my lunch date, is half my age, maybe a little less, but we are both loving the music. He says it was only after an hour that a track was played to which he didn’t know the words and that made it feel like home from home. Max owns a sandwich shop that has tables and sells booze. He understands that sound is the dominant factor in a space.  

Flickering flames and curling smoke should be the visual magnetism here but Nuala’s designers have contrived to conceal the hearth and grate from the majority of tables in the dining room, install overhead lights that bring to mind a visit to the dental hygienist and have a central layout that seems to reference the “white collar” in the development’s name. On the periphery of the space low, curved leather banquettes backed with wood like the walnut dashboard on a Humber Super Snipe are the better tables to bag.  

The menu offers dishes that sound like excellent wheezes. Two chosen in the first course are an oft-Instagrammed beefsteak tartare with egg yolk, extra- stout sauce and dripping fries and veal sweetbreads with cauliflower rarebit. The raw beef is roughly, loosely chopped. As the egg yolk is mixed in and the Guinness-based sauce poured on from a little ceramic jug, it assumes an overly sloshy, rather vexatious texture that chips don’t mitigate. Some of the crisp crumbs from the sweetbread assembly have to be pinched to give it edge. 

Fay Maschler's 50 favourite restaurants in London

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Clumps of roasted cauliflower and sautéed sweetbreads have an arguably fascinating affinity in outward appearance but unfortunately not inward flavour, especially with the addition of an underpowered cheesy sauce. On another occasion, at dinner before Christmas, the happy notion of clams with pistachio beurre blanc succeeds beautifully. I notice the same treatment is applied to mussels this time round.  

Supplier Nathan Mills of The Butchery in Forest Hill has an admirable approach to the business but his dry-aged rump steak, served here with a charred log of cucumber and cucumber pickle, is over the hill, a point beyond delicious, heading for disintegration. It is not pleasant — and not Nathan’s fault, I presume. Roast chicken with winter chanterelles and anchovy looks beautiful, with the dark mushrooms reclining lasciviously in clear gravy that has an evanescent whiff of the honey that has browned the bird’s skin.  
 

“If I was walking past I’d go in for a Black Velvet [Guinness with champagne] and a dish of those potatoes,” says Max. “And if they asked me if I wanted anything else, I’d say, ‘Yes, another bowl of those potatoes’.”  

But best of everything we try is the side dish of gratin Dauphinois made with King Edwards and lamb-fat gravy. Champ (mash studded with spring onions) made with Maris Pipers follows a close second. How fitting that a predominantly Gaelic enterprise should excel in spuds. “If I was walking past I’d go in for a Black Velvet [Guinness with champagne] and a dish of those potatoes,” says Max. “And if they asked me if I wanted anything else, I’d say, ‘Yes, another bowl of those potatoes’.”

Clementine tart at my first visit was a stand-out dessert; smoked chocolate and coffee mousse this time, not so much. From an engaging wine list we choose Xi-Ro Jason Ligas 2015 at £38, an organic Greek red with unfolding notes of fruit in which I would include tomato.

Downstairs there is a bar where whiskies abound and live musicians play in the evenings as the end of the week approaches. Nuala has a warm heart, a fact born out by the friendliness of the staff and their apparent morale. As I quite often want to say in case it gets forgotten in the rush to adopt or adapt the latest — often limp — trends, restaurants: it is not all about the food.

70-74 City Road, EC1 (020 3904 0462, nualalondon.com). Mon-Sat noon-3pm & 5.30pm-10pm. A meal for two with wine, about £130 including 12.5 per cent service.

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